


Hardcore

by MaggicSorceress



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I had a thought while watching an old stream clip, Im just starting with that, Phil Suffers, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Sorry Not Sorry, Technoblade suffers, Tommy suffers too cause why not, but hes unaware that he is, but its kind of more of a found family yk?, so I had to make this happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29193030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggicSorceress/pseuds/MaggicSorceress
Summary: It was an accident, a simple mistake, an unfortunate combination of nerves and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The call came quickly, unexpectedly, upon Techno’s household one spring morning. The call to war, to raise arms, to pay back a long overdue favour, and in the chaos of preparation the two who lived in the quaint arctic cottage forgot a crucial object to keep on their person at all times.ORPhilza dies and what happens afterwards.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Technoblade & Phil Watson, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57





	Hardcore

**Author's Note:**

> YES HI I AM AWARE THAT I HAVE NOT UPDATED ANY OTHER FICS SINCE LIKE SEPTEMBER  
> BUT LISTEN  
> L I S T E N  
> I HAVE NO EXCUSE JUST I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOY THIS BRAIN SPAWN I GOT FROM WATCHING A CLIP FROM ONE OF PHILZA'S STREAMS.  
> Also  
> These aren't the real people  
> Only the character's they portay on the SMP  
> Please keep that in mind, that's all! <3  
> -Maggic

It was an accident, a simple mistake, an unfortunate combination of nerves and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The call came quickly, unexpectedly, upon Techno’s household one spring morning. The call to war, to raise arms, to pay back a long overdue favour, and in the chaos of preparation the two who lived in the quaint arctic cottage forgot a crucial object to keep on their person at all times.

By the time Techno had realized he had forgotten to give Phil a totem it was already too late, the battle thick and chaotic around them. Techno had told himself to focus, to not worry about his best friend, that Phil was strong and perfectly capable of handling himself, that he’d see the man once the dust settled, bruised and battered but laughing and victorious and alive...

But nothing could have prepared him for the reality of the outcome of his one moment of carelessness.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at Phil, not where he lay, sprawled out among rocks and rubble, once vibrant eyes glassy and dull, and face half covered by thick trails of partially dried blood that seeped down from somewhere beneath straw-blond hair. He couldn’t stand the sight of the wide stone bracelet, lone and cold on the other’s wrist where it used to be so brilliant and pulse with life, his one life, that Phil had worn so easily, so obviously, with never a care nor concern despite the way everyone eyed the single accessory in confusion, their own three bracelets chinking together as they moved.

Now, the bracelet on Phil’s wrist was snapped, greyed-out, shattered the second his pulse had stopped.

Techno couldn’t bear to look at Phil, but he did, in spite of the way it made his throat and eyes burn, despite the scream that wanted to tear its way through his lungs, and despite how he felt the whole world crashing down onto him, threatening to buckle his knees and send him down into the earth with the weight of it, he held his best friend to his chest and carried him home.

No one stopped him.

The least Phil deserved was to be buried.

Tommy and Tubbo’s resounding sobs would have followed him back to the arctic had the voices in his head not already been a cacophony of cries.

Techno buried Phil quickly and quietly, a short distance from where his turtle farm sat. Not bothering with a shovel, he had torn through the frozen ground with his bare hands, deep cuts across his palms a constant reminder of who he was doing this for, of the one person he had sworn to himself he would always protect, of the person he had failed.

He had half the mind to make Phil a tombstone, but each time he sat down before carved smooth-stone with a pick and chisel his hands shook far too violently for him to even attempt at carving Phil’s name, the finality of the meaning behind the action stopping him despite how he knew the other deserved a headstone.

In the end, Techno took up his sword, his best and most prized possession, and stabbed it into the ground at the head of Phil’s grave, resolved to never draw the blade from that spot and to bring flowers, no matter how the snow and frost would have the bright petals wilting.

Time passed slowly, painfully, and with practiced ease Techno rebuilt the walls around his heart and settled back into his life, determined to stay by himself and away from the conflict of others.

~

It was cold and bright when Phil awoke, snowflakes drifting slowly and solemnly down around him. He blinked the snowflakes from his eyelashes and sat up. A mountainous snowy tundra stretched on ahead of him, punctuated occasionally by a spruce tree or frozen pond. Getting to his feet, Phil brushed the snow off his pants and began trudging his way towards the closest tree. It was an odd spawn, to be sure, and he didn’t remember how he had died in his last world, but oh well, he’d just have to start again. He got himself some basic tools and began wandering through the snow, searching in hope for a village or anything else that might help him out. The wings that hung from his back rustled in the cold, pulled tighter against his shoulders, as the sun began its slow decent in the sky. To Phil’s luck, he found a village very close, although, strangely enough, the farms were empty and all of the villagers were corralled into one of the larger houses, organized neatly for trading in a way that reminded him of the basement of his old house. Why it was here in a newly created world, he had no idea, but he counted his blessings, kept track of the coordinates, and moved on, stealing a bed from one of the houses. He continued on, wandering aimlessly through the cold, wondering when the snow would let up as he stretched his wings.

~

Tommy wanted to believe that things were getting better, that one day he’d be able to handle being alone for more than a few hours, that he’d be able to look into Wilbur’s eyes, the real Wilbur, no longer the shell in the form of a ghost, and not feel the urge to look away or shrink in on himself, that he’d be able to wander far away from the SMP lands and not glance over his shoulder every few minutes. Looking forwards with the mindset that that reality was attainable was uplifting, but it seemed like every step forward he took he was forced back another three, every time he thought he was healing, that he was progressing, he was forced back to square one. It was frustrating, infuriating, but he kept at it out of sheer stubbornness.

He wanted to go back to the way things used to be with Wilbur, he wanted to function independently, hell, he even wanted to try to get on better terms with Techno. Sure, he was angry at Techno for a lot of things, but if these past few months, it had almost been a year actually, had taught him anything it was that staying angry wouldn’t help him with anything.

And he wanted to visit Phil’s grave.

Tommy spent a long time pushing the reality of the older man’s death away from his mind, opting to not think about his missing presence after the day of the battle in favour of worrying about himself and his best friend. Now that he’d had that time to himself, to at least sort through the multitude of events that had affected him in not at all positive ways, he’d realized that he had, not once, visited the grave of a friend who had made such a difference in his life, in ways both positive and negative. He missed Phil, missed his easy personality and his open laugh, the way he was always willing to lend a helping hand but never took any bullshit.

But he had no idea where Techno had buried him. The last he had seen of the blond-haired man was when Techno had heaved Phil up from the ground and into his arms, too preoccupied with the sobbing friend in his own arms and the tightness in his chest to notice anything other than the direction in which Techno had retreated. There was no doubt in his mind that Techno had brought Phil back to his base, but Tommy had no idea if he’d survive going there after everything.

Still, he wanted to at least bring Phil some flowers.

So, Tommy strapped some armour to his back, slung a sword to his hip, and hoped that Techno would show him Phil’s grave, that he’d let him stay and offer some thanks, some respects. If not, he could at least hope that Techno wouldn’t kill him on the spot.

Oddly enough, no one had seen Techno since the war, since Phil’s death, but Tommy supposed that he couldn’t blame him for isolating himself in his arctic cottage, for staying away from the mainland after everything. It was something Tommy wished he could do on some days, just run away from everything, live a peaceful life in the woods somewhere where no one would bother him. Realistically, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to handle that. Maybe if Tubbo was with him...

He’d asked Tubbo if he wanted to come with him, but Tubbo was busy with something or another in Snowchester, so Tommy went by himself, took the long way to where he knew Techno’s base to be, assuming the other hadn’t moved. He took his time, not really in any hurry to reach the destination, picking up flowers along the way and admiring the surplus of new builds that had appeared around the server over the last couple of weeks. They were incredible. Large floating islands covered in flowers, glowing from the inside, with water spilling down to earth from their surface, and cloud-scraping towers that twisted and curled and cast imposing shadows on the ground. Tommy was left speechless every time he saw those builds, something painfully nostalgic sitting in his stomach.

Something that reminded him of underwater End cities and Nether-voids.

Shaking his head, Tommy pressed onwards until the ground turned hard and snow-covered beneath his feet and the slow, ever drifting plume of smoke rising from a lone chimney came into view.

~

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Phil smiled at his latest creation and shook out his wings, dislodging the dust of the netherrack and basalt from his feathers. The nether had been a mess when he’d reached it, and though he had no idea where the access other blocks and bridges had come from, he didn’t bother occupying his mind with questions about ‘why’ or ‘how’, just set to cleaning the place up, to demolishing bridges leading to nowhere and half-completed stairways.

Now, the nether was neat, tidy, easy to traverse. The bridges were thick and sturdy, stable and spawn-proof, and his portal was enclosed in a small room accessible only through an iron door opened by a button sitting next to it. He’d probably expand that later, maybe re-make the Nether-void once he got the inspiration for it. Though, he probably wouldn’t make it the same...maybe he could do it a different way this time...

But for now, he brushed his dirtied hands off and flapped his wings, taking to the sweltering Nether air as he made his way back to his portal and stepped into the enclosure. He’d been in the Nether for far too long, he needed some fresh air and sunlight. Plus, he should probably go mining again, he was a little short on diamonds and he needed to repair his pickaxe.

Phil’s house was lit warmly by afternoon sunlight when he stepped out of the portal and into the main room. For someone who prided themselves on extravagant builds, his own house was always rather minimalistic. Few pieces of furniture, a bed, a fireplace, and a small kitchen with a wooden table and two chairs. There were some windows stretched along the east-facing wall of his home, so the sunlight could hit his bed and wake him up. It wouldn’t be good to waste any hours of daylight. Along the west wall lay stacks upon stacks of chests, filled to the brim with tools and building blocks and materials. He’d tried to go to the End, wanting to collect shulker boxes again, but each time he set out to find the stronghold a horrible sense of foreboding flooded him, had him returning home as if something was watching his every move, breathing down his neck, threatening to attack him the second he set foot in the ancient ruins, and frankly, he didn’t want to lose his world again so soon, so he stayed away.

Did that mean he didn’t miss having a surplus of shulker boxes? No, he still very much did miss that, but he managed. His builds took longer, for sure, as he kept having to make multiple trips back and forth between the build site and his house, but they turned out the way he wanted them to in the end.

There were other builds around that he hadn’t had a hand in making, but each time his brain began to wonder who had been there before him it hit a wall, invisible and impenetrable, and he was forced to move on, to ignore it and just be content with what he was doing.

He saw other people milling about too, and although that was rare, it wasn’t anything that hadn’t happened to him before.

Through his years of hardcore, probably beginning sometime during his five-year world, the hallucinations had shown up.

Most of the time, it was faces he had never seen before. Other times, it was his friends, his family, and those moments were as comforting as they were heartbreaking, reminded him of what he was doing all this for, of what he was missing out on.

This world seemed to favour the unfamiliar faces, the ones that itched at the back of his brain, like he should know them, but left their faces blurred in his memory, their voices merging and losing all sense of individuality until he could only tell them apart by their names. These new hallucinations were kind to him, though they had scarcely been cruel since they had first appeared to him, and he valued the company, however fake and momentary it was. They made him laugh, talked with him tirelessly while he worked day after day on a new project, and on occasion they reminded him of his old friends.

Sometimes a young man, tall and lanky with clashing shades covering his whole form, who looked down at him with anxious mismatched eyes, reminded him so much of a son he hadn’t seen in so long that it almost hurt to talk to him, but he did, because if he could do nothing else for the people he cared about, he could at least be there to listen when one of these hallucinations needed someone to talk to.

Maybe his mind was trying to tell him something...

But probably not.

~

The last thing Tommy had expected was for the very obvious chimney smoke to not be coming from Techno’s cottage, but rather a different house he had never seen before, isolated on the edge of a dark oak forest and the snowy arctic. It was compact and made of stone, windows lining only one side and doors made of iron, the whole of the surrounding area a mess of torches. A path led from the front door to a nearby river, made of smooth stone and toiled dirt, where a boat sat serenely on the shores. Tommy, as he took in the sight of the place, began to wonder if Techno had actually relocated his house and, with that in mind, hesitantly made his way to the front door. He knocked, not willing to push his luck, but when no response came, he pressed the button next to the door and let himself in.

The second he stepped inside, a sense of nostalgia swept over him, leaving him chilled in a way that wasn’t from the cold. The stack of chests lined on one wall, the small quilted bed tucked away in a corner, the smoldering fireplace in the opposite corner, and the scent of lavender and chamomile sat faintly in the air. Tommy took it all in, chest tightening painfully and heart almost stopping as his eyes landed on the familiar green coat lying draped across the end of the bed. He picked it up, almost reverently, and wondered if Techno had kept it, had held onto one of the only things left of Phil. The coat’s lingering warmth made him wonder if Techno had been wearing the old thing, though he wasn’t sure the cloth was large enough to cover the other’s shoulders.

Tommy held the coat to his chest and frowned.

In a nearby room, a Nether portal activated, humming gently. Tommy froze, threw the coat back onto the bed, and dived beneath the frame, holding his breath.

An iron door on the chest-filled side of the room opened and Tommy could only stare at the familiar, greyed-out figure of Phil as he walked into the main room, stretching his arms above his head and his wings out on either side of him. His normally emerald green clothing was dulled out, resembling more of the faded green of dying grass, and his hat was missing from his head, replaced by a hovering circlet of crimson that dripped like blood. Phil’s eyes were blank, blue irises replaced by white voids, and his skin was grey, transparent when looking at it from a certain angle. Straw-blond hair had lost the majority of its golden sheen, and at the center of his chest, where a pendent of a red heart usually rested, sat a glowing emerald, seemingly embedded in his chest, pulsing with every nonexistent beat of his heart.

Tommy watched Phil make his way over to the kitchen and turn on a kettle, the sound of boiling water filling the silence of the space, before he began rummaging through his chests, storing away mass amounts of netherrack and basalt. He hummed softly to himself as he did, a familiar tune that had Tommy’s throat closing.

Unbidden, memories flooded to his skull, memories of cold early spring days, when the rain hammered against the windows and they all took solace in each other’s presence, settled in snug around the fireplace with Wilbur’s guitar and the gentle dual sounds of humming drowning out the invading downpour.

The kettle screeched and Tommy jolted, nearly smacking his head on the underside of the bed, and Phil whirled from his chests, darting away into the kitchen. Tommy took that moment to pull himself out from his hiding spot, holding his arms tightly to his chest.

“Phil?” He called. “Is that you?”

Phil’s head peaked around the corner of the kitchen’s entrance, face lighting up when he saw Tommy.

“Tommy! How have you been, mate?” Phil asked, smiling wide and genuine. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard from you. You and Wil still working on that revolution?”

Tommy blinked. “Phil...the revolution’s been over for months...”

“Has it?” Phil said. “Oh, I’m sorry, I must’ve forgotten if you or Wil told me.”

“We...Phil wha-...what are you doing here?” Tommy asked, pacing back and forth. “You- I- What?”

“What do you mean what I am doing here?” Phil left the kitchen, cradling a steaming cup of tea. “I’m playing hardcore, Tommy. Just like usual.”

“What are you talking about? This is the SMP! Y’know! The Dream SMP!”

“Tommy don’t be silly.”

“I’m not!” Tommy defended. “You’ve been here for months now! You joined and...and you killed Wilbur and then joined up with Technoblade to destroy L’Manberg and-”

“Tommy, do you realize how insane you sound?” Phil said, gesturing around the house. “This isn’t the Dream SMP, okay? We’ve been over this. Dream said I wasn’t allowed in.”

“Then where are we, huh?!”

“I’m in my new hardcore world.”

Tommy took a deep breath. “Phil, I promise you, this is not your hardcore world. I can take you to L’Man-”

But L’Manberg was gone, nothing but a crater in the ground, overgrown with red vines and moss. There was no L’Manberg to prove that they were on the SMP, but with all those other builds...

“Phil, listen, this can’t be your own world.” Tommy said. “There’s so many other people around all the time, and they’ve built so many things!”

Phil shrugged. “It’s a weird spawn. There was probably an update I wasn’t aware of.”

“No! That’s not-” Tommy took another breath. “Okay, fine, alright, but how are you here?”

“What do you mean?” Phil said, sipping his tea.

“I mean...you...you _died_ , Philza Minecraft.”

“I mean, yeah, I would’ve had to, since this is a new world.”

Tommy worried his lip, continuing to pace around the room, lost in thought for a long moment before he turned back to Phil.

“Does Techno or Wil know you’re here?” Tommy said. “Y’know, in your new world?”

Phil hummed and shook his head, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “No, I haven’t seen them in a while either. Are they both doing alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, they’re fine.” Tommy waved away Phil’s obvious concern. “When was the last time you talked to them?”

“Probably...I don’t know...a few months ago? Around November or October.”

“And...and you don’t remember how you died in your old world?”

“Now that you mention it, not really. But I spawned in a few weeks ago.”

Tommy’s heart fell to the pit of his stomach, a familiar anxiousness seeping into his bones. This seemed so similar to what had happened to Wilbur, but in Phil’s case he didn’t even remember joining the server. At least Ghostbur had remembered the happy memories he had made here, Phil remembered _nothing_. Hell, he thought this was _hardcore_.

“Well, it’s been nice talking to you, big man.” Tommy said, making his way back to the front door. “But I’ve gotta head out for the day. I’ll chat with you later, yeah?”

“Of course, Tommy!” Phil said as he got to his feet and waved, smile soft. “Take care!”

Tommy practically fell out of the house, stumbling down the path and breaking out into a sprint along the clearing. He needed to get back to the SMP lands, he needed to talk to Tubbo, he needed to find Techno or Wilbur and...

He had no idea what to do.

Slowing his sprint to a stop, Tommy took a breath of cold arctic air.

_He had no idea what to do._

Phil seemed so genuinely happy, even if he was lost in his own world, even if he remembered nothing that had happened, and in that way he reminded Tommy of Ghostbur, oblivious but pleased with his existence.

Wilbur hadn’t wanted to come back. He wondered if Phil would react the same, if he could even convince the other that he was on the SMP and not on his fifth hardcore series world. For some reason, he doubted that last bit.

Everything was just so confusing now...

And he hadn’t even given Phil the flowers.

Heart heavy, Tommy resolved to head back home, or at least to Snowchester.

He had no idea what to do.


End file.
